Hi everyone,

So, I have time to write again, it’s a nice thing.  I had my CRE final exam on Tuesday. I was busy studying well weekend, or else I would have written sooner. It was a cumulative exam, and went really well.  The final for MIZ is on Monday. Hopefully I can find some time to study this weekend because I’m working on my CRE oral presentation and my MIZ web project. I’m actually going to finish my web project tonight and/or tomorrow and give myself a little leeway to get other things done over the weekend.  So this last two weeks of classes (this week and next week) are easily the busiest two yet. Everything comes together in these two weeks, Oral presentations, laboratory information that is handed in, web research projects and our proposals for our research for the last four weeks of the semester.

This is no easy task, but it’s been amazing and exciting.  Being here in Bermuda has been everything I expected and more. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any good picture of the R/V Explorer before it went out on another cruise for the week. It is going to be back Saturday morning, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a shot and put it up here on the blog over the weekend.

I cannot believe it is the second week in November. I only have 5 weeks left from this Saturday.  It is crazy.  Time has flown by this semester, but every single minute has been worth everything.  So, I’m sure some of you might be worrying about Holidays and stuff here in Bermuda. So first of all, yes we celebrated Halloween, we went out to Hamilton to a big Halloween party, and it was great. We all got dressed up; some of the students made their own costumes…I put on a cowboy hat and I was good HAHA. We have a local holiday coming up this weekend on Saturday, Remembrance Day. It is equivalent to our Veteran’s Day, and all offices are closed on Monday, but we still have class, go figure. The one thing I think I’m going to miss the most is Thanksgiving at home with my family.  This is going to be the first thanksgiving away and it’s definitely going to be a little awkward, especially because it is not celebrated at all here. We’ll just have to wait at see how that turns out.

Well I have to go get stuff done. Hope you are all well and have a great end to the semester.

Cheers,

Mitch

WOW, Happy November everyone… haha

YES, I am alive. I have not been lost in the Bermuda Triangle, at least not yet. Even though it may seem as if i was lost at sea, I am perfectly fine. Hahah… Its a little funny, got to give me at least a little credit for trying… Oh well

SO, now let me apologize that I haven’t posted in a while. I am very sorry. But, I’ll explain. So we have been unbelievably busy. We are writing lab reports and research papers what feels around the clock. Nah!! Its not that bad, but I am definitely being kept busy by them.

So classes are winding down. I have my final for CRE next week Tuesday and MIZ the week after on Monday. We are also beginning to start preparing for our oral presentations as well as our web projects for MIZ. Each student prepares a web page for one species of invertebrate found here in Bermuda. I am doing fire coral, Millepora alcicornis. As soon as the web pages are done you can check them out. The website is http://www.marineinvertebratezoology.com . You can check out what other students have done in the course in the previous two years. It is a lot of fun but still hard work compiling all the primary literature from journals. On that note, here at BIOS, the library is extensive. They have almost any journal collection you could possibly want as a marine biologist, biologist, geneticist, chemist, and oceanography. The collection is great for all the research that I’m conducting, as well as the other students.

I feel like I’m rambling a little, just put up with me for a little bit, I just finished writing more than half of my lab report. In this lab that I’m writing up, we are investigating the affect of irradiance (light levels) on a branch of coral. We tried to see the difference between corals that were kept in normal light and in shaded conditions and determined if there was any significant difference between the growth rates of the two in these two different light levels. It is very interesting, and also a large influence into my decision for my research project.

So, let’s get off the topic of school. I’m sure you are all curious of the life in Bermuda. Bermuda is gorgeous. There is a very extensive bus system that runs through the entire island. We can get anywhere on the island using our student transportation passes. We were able to buy them at the beginning of the term here and have been fantastic to let us go out and explore the island. One of the coolest things while being here is watching cruise ships pull into ports. In St. George, about a 5 minute ride from station, is one of the ports. Another port is in Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda and one in the old British naval base, known as dockyard. It is quite a spectacle seeing these huge ships pull into port and dock. I was definitely mesmerized the first time I saw it. But of course, what’s Bermuda without pink sand beaches. I’m going to tack on a few shots of the pink beaches for you guys and a few more sights from the station.

I will absolutely be posting again this week, so look out for it!!! I will catch you all up within the next two weeks; look for a bunch of posts. Enjoy, and be well. Until next time,

Cheers

Mitch

PS: The research vessel, the R/V Explorer has finally come back and docked here at BIOS at the new dock, so look out for pictures of that to come in the next couple posts.

Horseshoe Bay, Pink Beaches and clear water…Enjoy!

Me out on the porch looking out with Ferry Reach and the airport.

Hey all,So problem fixed, I have pictures for you all. There will be plenty more behind these. This is just a small little preview of what is to come from scuba diving and what else is going on here on the station. Any questions or comments on the pictures, please feel free to leave me, It would be great to hear from you.

Cheers,

Mitch

This is the view I get to see everyday for every meal. I love it! This is Ferry Reach, and we do go swimming in it all the time.

This is just a little picture of me from one of our dives. Just thought it would be cool to show you what I look like underwater.

This is one of my favorite photos. I’m sitting at about 30 feet of water looking up at this spire of coral. It ends at about 10 feet below the water line.

Hope You Enjoyed, more to come!!!

-Mitch

Hey Everyone,

Once again, I apologize for the erratic postings. The course work here keeps me very busy. So on that note Bermuda has been wonderful for the first month. Classes haven’t stopped. I have research assignments going on as well as field work every other day.

This past week, for MIZ, we snorkeled in Walsingham Pond. It is a lake about 15-20 feet deep. The entire bottom is covered by a certain species of jellyfish known as the upside-down jellyfish. Our task at the pond was the use quadrats randomly spaced to estimate the cover of upside-down jellyfish in the pond. My dive team (which consisted of me and one buddy) had to throw our quadrat and then count how many jellies were in our quadrat, then free dive down to the bottom to retrieve the quadrat and proceeded to do that nine more times.

For CRE we went out diving again this week. We went out to a site out on the rim reef to do our continuing reef survey at different reef sites. I participated in the reef fish survey at this site. I surveyed a 5m x 5m box on the reef and had to identify and find all the fish that were there. It was cool to just stay suspended in the water and watch the fish in their natural habitat and follow their normal behaviors.

In diving, I’ve complete my navigation specialty, wreck dive specialty and my fish identification specialty. All I have left is to do a “deep” dive, any dive under 60 feet and a night dive, which I’m very excited for.

The adjustment to being here in Bermuda for a month now, has not been difficult. It’s just like my summer never really ended. I still wear shorts and a t-shirt everyday. The humidity is always a factor. As of right now, there hasn’t been too much of a culture shock at all. Everything here in Bermuda is a little more expensive though, seeing as almost everything here must be imported. Other than that, it is very easy to understand locals. They don’t have any real heavy accent, but it is distinctive to the island. It’s a mix of Caribbean and some United Kingdom little tendencies.
Until next time, hope everyone is having a great semester, and comment!!! I’d love to hear from you all.

Cheers,

Mitch

Hey All,

Sorry I’ve been quite busy here in Bermuda. Ever since Hurricane Florence, we have been playing catch-up in class. We are all caught up now. So, now that I’ve had class for a full two weeks I can tell you all about it.

The first class I am taking is Marine Invertebrate Zoology, humbly known as MIZ. The course is filled with lectures everyday followed by lab work or field work in the afternoon. Just the other day, we had a lecture on sponges in class. We ate lunch, and right after lunch I was out on the water, snorkeling around Harrington Sound looking for my species to collect. Once we found our species of sponge, we needed to take a sample to use in lab. I grabbed my dive knife off my leg and cut off just a small portion of the sponge to take back to the lab. Don’t worry, sponges can regenerate and grow fast. So, Mondays and Wednesdays are all about MIZ. Wednesday we usually spend the morning in lecture and the afternoon in the lab working on our samples taken earlier in the week. This next week we have a dive planned out on the coral reef rim to dive one of Bermuda’s many wrecks, The Constellation. We are going to be finding and collecting many different species of Cnidaria (Corals, jellyfish, anemones) as well as enjoy diving the wreck.

The other class I’m taking is Coral Reef Ecology. Coral Reefs are one of, if not the most productive ecosystem in the world. Most of us have heard coral reefs be described as the rain forest of the oceans. Well, we have a whole course dedicated to just corals, and more specifically the coral ecosystems of Bermuda. So, Tuesdays and Thursdays are dedicated to CRE. This past Tuesday I was out on the reef, taking a coral disease survey. Its part of an entire survey project that will be going on all semester long at different reefs throughout Bermuda. It was exciting and we then recorded all of our field surveys in lab on Thursday.

Friday is set aside for our diving course. In this course, I was already certified in CPR and first aid. Also, I am now certified in being a diving accident oxygen provider. The next couple weeks, I will be diving every Friday working on my Advanced Open Water diver certification, as well as my scientific diver certification, which is internationally recognized.

I hope you are all enjoying the blog, I will definitely be on top of it in the next week; so lookout for more posts, because I’m going to try to get them out quick. Feel free to comment, I would love to hear from you all!!

Cheers,

Mitch

Hey All,

Sorry this one won’t be too long, just wanted to fill you all in now that I have been here at BIOS for a full week . Last week we did a lot of introduction meetings and work with our professors and other researchers. We went out on Wednesday to do a snorkel to introduce us to one of the bays here near the station, Whalebone Bay. It was amazing. We got to snorkel out past the rocks and to the coral reefs. It was great free diving to about 15 feet and investigating the reef. Thursday we did our checkout dives for the station; I passed without a problem. However, my group went out to one of the most popular reefs in Bermuda, a dive site called North Rock. It was the most gorgeous coral reef I have ever seen in my six years of diving. Friday we headed to the aquarium in the Flatts. Monday we were hit by Hurricane Florence. We are all safe and sound and made it through! It was really cool to watch a hurricane flying outside.

Sorry for the brisk post. Watch out later this week for a full update on everything including pictures from the aquarium and the station. Until then,

Cheers

Mitch

Hey all, and welcome to the fall semester blog. My name is Mitch, I am a junior at the University of Rhode Island (URI) and I am a Marine Biology major. I am down here in beautiful Bermuda studying abroad. Bermuda is located about seven hundred miles to the west of North Carolina. However, we have mostly tropical weather, including the humidity.

I chose to study abroad for a couple reasons. This program through URI is very unique and major specific. It is actually one of the reasons why I decided on going to URI in the first place. This program gives me, as a marine biology major, a chance to ‘flex my muscles’ sort of speak. I am here taking a course in marine invertebrate zoology and coral reef ecology. Both classes are worth 5 credits that URI takes as straight credits. This program to the Bermuda Biological Science and Research Center (BBSR) was an opportunity as a marine biology major I just could not miss.  There is also an opportunity to do our own personal research while here, as well as improve my scuba diving skills within a course designed to further my dive certification as well as certify me as a scientific diver.

I arrived here in Bermuda on Tuesday, September 5^th. I arrived at the only airport in Bermuda, and actually departed the plane by walking down stairs and then into the airport. It was definitely a fun experience, since I’ve only done it one other time when I had visited Mexico a couple years back. As soon as I was in the airport, you can notice differences here in Bermuda. Since Bermuda is a British independent territory, they hold a lot of British customs, for example, being very well mannered. I was traveling with three other URI students as well, so it helped when we got here. We hopped into a taxi after passing through customs and immigration. The biological station was only about a ten minute ride from the airport, so we were here pretty quick. Once here, we checked in were just in time for dinner. We also had to remember to fix all of our watches. We actually had gone ahead one time zone, and are ahead one hour from the east coast.

On first impression, I thought that I was in paradise. Within two hours of being here, we were already in the water off ‘concrete beach’. It is exactly what it sounds like really; stairs down onto a concrete slab that is right at the water out back of the station. All and all, my arrival was very easy and uncomplicated.

I am really looking forward to keeping this blog and keeping up with all of you. Please leave me comments and feel free to ask questions. I will field as much as possible and I hope you all enjoy this. There will be pictures of all of us from URI up on the blog in the coming weeks as well as possibly a guest blogger from another URI student during the semester.  Have a great week!

-Mitch

PS: I also found out this week that BBSR has officially changed its name. It is now known as the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Sciences (BIOS).  Just for everyone to know, and you can still check the station out online at www.bbsr.edu